Konah Gray: V-SAT Expert 📡

Konah Gray, an independent V-SAT technician, is often outsourced NATC's V-SAT installation jobs. He's been all over the counties and, always gets the job done. Sometimes, we have asked our staff to accompany him.

See a blog post from Daniel when he went to Zwedru along with Konah: V-SAT INSTALLATION, ZWEDRU CITY. 
He was at our office and I decided to have a little chat with him about where he received his training. He told me a medical doctor at Firestone with passion for satellite technology gave him the first exposure to satellites. This was Dr. Benedict Saab, a Lebanese-born Liberian doctor who passed away in 2008. 
Thanks to Dr Saab, Konah was able to learn about this technology on V-SAT dishes for satellite television. In those days, he learned about the MESH dish, a C-Band dish.
V-SAT technology came to Liberian in 2004/2005. For the television satellite services, one has to track the signal from east to west, 68 degrees east and 55 degrees west for Liberia.
For V-SAT technology for Internet, you only point to one satellite.
What equipment do you need to set up a V-SAT? You need the dish, LNB (receives the signal, down), BUC (sends the signal up), co-axiable cable, RG 11or RG6 and modem. 
Technicians use a SAT Finder or spectrum analyser to link the dish to the satellite. Konah prefers a SAT Finder. It connects between the modem and LNB. 
How long does it take to align a dish? After the V-SAT and other hardware has been mounted and installed, it typically takes 6 hours to do the alignment. 
What can go wrong? For example, the option file sent by the service provider can have the wrong GPS coordinates or incorrect frequency values.

by Farzana Rasheed

Secret Santa 2017

Every year, the NATC team exchanges gifts. We finally managed to open ours today as everyone was finally together! 

LEC issue finally gets resolved! 🔌💡⚡🔦

My staff Farman Ali sent us this photograph on 8 January on our company NATC group chat. I had an idea that instead of Haresh or I going to LEC to make noise and that our national staff doesn't seem to be able to impress upon the LEC, we should send our expatriate staff. So, he went to LEC office in Bushrod Island to follow up but it was closed. He waited until he found some staff to speak with.

Then the same day, a crew came over to check our meter. There were 6 or 7 members in that team! 

The crew sorted out the issue. Our meter was working and they got us back. What a relief! Of course Haresh gave them a small tip. 

So, it was a matter of:

1) Writing a formal letter of complaint detailing the problem.

2) Going in person several times to the LEC offices. 

Next, we will follow up with the issues at our apartment. 

By the way, the LEC service has been quite stable. 

Further LEC headaches

After about 2 weeks of having to run our generator every day (this is $ 20.00 of fuel per day), I was quite frustrated! 

Before our meter went off, we had just topped up our meter with 200 units which we were not able to use!

I asked our expatriate staff, Farman, to go personally to the LEC and follow up. He went with our Liberian techie, Daniel, last Saturday. They visited both the Waterside and Bushrod Island offices. They had taken an official letter of complaint also with them. They were not able to submit the letter and then went to the Bushrod Island office where apparently Daniel found a friend who works there. I don't think much transpired and, of course, nothing was done that Saturday.

We came back to work on 2 January and, I saw that Farman had not gone to the LEC to file the letters and then follow up. I told him to proceed. But all he really did was file the letter without making any noise. 

The next day, he was a little fired up and, asked for a contact from a Pakistani friend he has here (who  works at a company in Bushrod Island). He was directed to someone at Bushrod Island who sent a crew back with him! 

The crew managed to put our light back on (so what the other technician said during the previous visit was completely wrong)! 

However, only 2 phases worked and half our work stations could not come on. I asked Farman to see if we can manage with extension cords. 

This morning, only 1 phase is working. I asked Farman to follow up again and get it sorted out. 

What adds to one's frustration is that staff doesn't seem to have the sense of urgency to get problems resolved like a manager/business owner does. What's the end result? Even more grey hairs!